Hardly. In my world, students who can’t learn how to communicate don’t get their PhDs.
Girl, tell me about it! From once having June Cleaverhood forced upon us willy-nilly, when I started preparing for transition over a decade ago, I found in the trans world that femininity was roundly frowned upon. This is what Julia Serano meant by “trans-misogyny” in her excellent book Whipping Girl and continuing with Excluded. Well, I rock the skirt suit and heels too, so more power to us.
I think your view of feminism is very narrow, as I am a feminist who espouses the ideas of what you call “regular women.” Of course a woman can choose not to be independent. I chose to sublimate my optimal career choices for my husband’s, and it was a worthy sacrifice. But it was a choice I MADE. Not everyone gets a choice.
Even though you deny the existence of many problems women face as a direct result of their gender, you are really hitting it on the head with regard to some feminists’ disillusionment with radical feminism. As blindyboard put it, the idea that women have no sexual agency in a hetero relationship is a really macho concept.
I’ll even go so far as to say that view undermines those of us who have fought tooth and nail to enjoy our sexuality on our own terms. Early in my life I was subordinated to the desires of men in the most literal way, I did not even grasp that I had the right to say no to the unwanted sexual attention visited on me by my abusers. After having endured over a decade of sexual problems and scrapping for an empowered sex life in spite of those early experiences, the idea that I don’t know what I really want, or that I’m choosing an inferior role in my own sex life, pisses me off.
It took me forever to come to terms with the fact that I am a sexual submissive, in part because of these misinformed attitudes about what that means and the myth that this sort of thing is abuse related. I feel sexually empowered in that role and nobody, woman or otherwise, is going to tell me how I really feel, or what is healthy and normal for me. Nobody is going to insert themselves into my sexuality after I’ve worked so hard to make it mine. It’s also an insult to my partner who is as far from exploitative as it gets.
I’m also writing a book of my own that tackles this directly. It’s a novel that explores both sexual victimization and sexual empowerment through submissiveness. In my story it’s the man who is worried about being exploitative, no better than a rapist, and the woman who helps him deal with his conflicted sexuality. Rape and kinky sex are two entirely different things. I won’t even say they are unrelated because it is the claiming of your sexuality after it was abused that makes the choice so powerful. Consent is the real lynchpin of equality, or more to the point, freedom to choose.
As far as your OP goes, I learned more about feminism from that post than I did from two years of social work school, which is sad, but nonetheless appreciated. You continue to be one of my favorite posters. I must have been in academia too long because I understood every word.
To BigT I ask, why do you care what AHunter3 calls herself? Why isn’t she* allowed to name her own experience? Who cares what is conventional?
*She? Have I got that right?
I’m also willing to bet this is a generational thing. I remember pre-election there was a great article written by a Millennial woman. It was called something like, “No, I don’t owe Hillary my vote.” It was sympathetic toward previous generations of feminists but ultimately asserted that the entire point of feminism wasn’t to fall in line, but to choose. My generation is standing on the shoulders of those who came before us, but consider that the view from up here is different than it was from down there.
On the flip side, I think some newer generations have lost their minds. You can’t generalize about “feminists” any more than you can about “Christians” or any other loosely aggregated group consisting of millions of individuals. Time and experience have led us all to a wide variety of conclusions about what problems we have, and how to solve them.
I don’t request “she” or expect it but that doesn’t mean I don’t like it.
Really, I’m not particularly focused on pronouns. They’re all inadequate (for me, I mean). There’s one set that goes with my sex and one that goes with my gender which makes either conventional set half right and half wrong. And I, personally, would feel silly asking people to use one that I made up to represent the male-sex feminine-gender combo. The mileage of someone else in a similar position may differ.
Loved Whipping Girl; should read the other book too.
To me, the guiding principle is simple: you do you. I wouldn’t dream of telling another person what makes them feel good, and fulfilled, and empowered. Wear your heels, raise your kids, work as a lumberjack, be straight or trans or gender inverted, be free. Man or woman or whatever gender you are, be free. That’s it.
I realize society often creates barriers to realizing that ideal, and those are the barriers I fight to dismantle. That is my feminism.
Just don’t be a fashion victim. Trans, or cis. Because if you walk out of the house looking like someone from People of Walmart, you’ve sinned against nature. (I’ll never forget the guy I saw walking around in the Strip District wearing a bikini.)
Is this thread about radical feminism yet? Or is it still about AHunter3? Because I have questions about radical feminism that have nothing to do with AHunter3, and I don’t know if this is the right place to ask them. I’d start a thread about it, but now what would I use for the title?
At some point I was introduced to the idea that, under a patriarchal system, a woman can’t really give meaningful consent to sexual activity with a man, because… I don’t think I need to restate the argument, as anyone who could answer this question is probably already familiar with it.
The thing is, I know it’s a “radical” idea, and a lot of people disagree with it, but… I can’t say I’ve ever heard the argument refuted to my satisfaction. I’ve given it a good bit of thought, and I can’t find the inconsistency.
I suppose it’s academic, because I’ve engaged in sexual activity with women after I was exposed to this idea (I present as male, and answer to he/him/his). I get the idea that nobody posting in this thread would characterize what I did as rape, but apparently some people would, and I have no answer for the charge. Would anybody like to tell me why they’re wrong?
cuauhtemoc, I think what you’re up against is the fallacy of the excluded middle, or a variation thereupon.
Let’s formulate a far-from-middleish patriarchy, an absolute patriarchy in which female people have no rights whatsoever, informal or otherwise. Even in situations where the male who most directly owns her wishes that she be allowed to make choices, there is no societal expectation that anyone will honor or respect them. In that environment, I would say no woman can give meaningful consent to any kind of activity that involves a man, sexual or otherwise. Everything that happens either happens without regard for her will and her wishes or (far more rarely) it occurs through her direct force and initiative without the involvement of any male’s intentions or wishes—the sexes do not negotiate.
Now let’s step away from that absolute. Powerful men want their daughters to have hegemony over their underling males; they want their wives to run households and be able to negotiate in their stead in the marketplace and to be respected as their own representative. It’s not much of a step but it’s still different. Women are not weak people. Given even a small space of operation they will make whatever choices they can make, they will utilize whatever degrees of freedom are available to them. Can a woman in that situation give meaningful consent to sex or is it still all rape? How many steps away from the absolute, how much feminist progress, before it ceases to be true that she can’t?
The fallacy of the excluded middle can and does often manifest itself as a concern that if one acknowledges successful progress towards one’s goal, that acknowledgment will be taken as a sign that the original concerns, the original complains about the inequalities and unfairnesses of it all, will be dismissed as no longer applicable.
Infinity? It’s still a patriarchy, right? Then she’s under some degree of duress all the time, by definition, isn’t she?
It’s either a patriarchy, or it’s not a patriarchy. If it’s a patriarchy, then any “steps” taken toward female liberation happen in that context. Without the opportunity to give consent outside that context, the consent is not given freely. There’s no fallacy of the excluded middle, you’re creating a middle where none exists.
Or, so the theory goes, as I understand it.
:smack: :smack: :smack:
** select previous post **
** select charstring “up against is”
** del **
I have finally found a thread that appeals me
Anyways. I will give my summary with feminism in this incoming post you are about to read…
I always disliked/loathed the term “feminism”, as the term implies basically male inferiority/female superiority. Even as a kid when I was so naive about social issues I cringed the term.
Learning more female issues today, I still am anti-feminist and hate the term as much as they come. I prefer egalitarianism, humanism or even equalism for that matter.
You can fix female issues without having to use the feminism card so widly.
Another thing to add is it doesn’t focus on the issues quite widely and wants to act as if only straight white guys can be their biggest enemies
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Hate to break it to you, white guys are not responsible for 90% of all rapes out there.
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Every race of men can be quite sexist to some degree
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If you’re going to be a real feminist, then also discuss some serious issues like allowing women to embrace their femininity and stop making them forcefully enter jobs as if the world is ending.
Feminism lost its way, is really sad.
Also, diversity
Why do we still lack male teachers, models and nurses? And why do we still lack gender-neutral marketing? And why are women’s prisons still treated like kindergartens?
Thanks for your contribution. We’ll just add this to the long list of things you think you understand but really really don’t, at all.
You ever done time?
I doubt he’d survive 48 hours in this kindergarten.
I may not to you, but I am sure some people would agree with me.
Yes, there are–but here is where you should be looking for them. (And you can read about them here and here.)
Why I am not in shock this was in PA?
Has the term “male supremacy” even gotten usage before?